DEBUNKED: 7 Common Myths

About The Brain

LAUREN F FRIEDMAN

JUL. 24, 2014, 6:15 PM

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Kaushik Narasimhan / Flickr

Everyone who has a brain seems to like talking about brains, but there's
a lot of misinformation floating around. In their latest ASAP Science
video, Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown list seven of the most common
brain myths and then explain why they aren't true.
Here are seven corrections of oft-repeated myths, with the full video
below.
1. Bigger isn't better. If it were, the sperm whale with the largest
brain of all, one significantly larger than a human's would be the
smartest creature on earth. Humans don't even have a particularly
impressive brain-to-body-mass ratio. The winner in that category
among mammals is the humble tree shrew, thought that's largely
because its body is so tiny.

2. Alcohol doesn't kill brain cells. Excessive drinking can damage

the connections between brain cells, but won't actually vaporize any of
your neurons. That said, children with fetal alcohol syndrome
often have fewer brain cells, and excessive drinking over long periods
of time can indeed damage the brain just not in the way you may
think.
3. Drugs don't create "holes" in your brain. That doesn't mean
drugs are good for your brain, of course: Many can significantly alter
your brain's structure and disrupt its function. But none will turn a
healthy brain into a stack of Swiss cheese.
4. You don't have 100 billion brain cells. In 2009, scientists found
that you actually have more like 86 billion brain cells a difference
that's significant when you think about the fact that 14 billion neurons
might represent the entire brain of another creature.
5. You don't use just 10% of your brain. This myth has been
debunked over and over again, but it just won't die. The new Scarlett
Johansson movie, Lucy, is just one recent example perpetuating
it. You may not use all of your brain at once, but just because you're
not doing math equations and juggling while you write a sonnet
doesn't mean you can't access all the parts of your brain you need to
do all of those things. You can, and you do.
6. You aren't "left-brained" or "right-brained." It's a common old
canard: Creative people are right-brained, while the logically-minded
are left-brained. False. It's true that different hemispheres of your
brain are more engaged in certain tasks (the left side is dominant in
language, for example), but studies have never found overall left- or
right-brain dominance in individuals.
7. You don't have just five senses. Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and
touch are just the beginning. Don't forget about balance, temperature,
and time, as well as proprioception the body awareness that helps
us not walk into things all the time and nociception, our sense of
pain.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/7-common-myths-about-the-brain-20147#ixzz39yVChcCR